


Unetaneh Tokef

by grainjew



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Apologies, Friendship, Gen, Jewish Kozato Enma, Jewish Shimon Cozart, Teshuva, and thus by extention, but i sure do enforce them, have you seen that guys hat. have you seen his NAME. shimon primo was jewish i dont make the rules, he wouldnt call himself jewish but its embedded in the fabric of his cultural upbringing, its just kinda in the background radiation, which honestly is pretty similar to how i see enmas judaism..., you really dont have to know shit about judaism to read this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 02:23:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15920958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Enma has been meaning to apologize to Chrome for everything that happened while he was being manipulated by Daemon Spade, and he finally gets the chance.Chrome, meanwhile, is very good at being unreadable.





	Unetaneh Tokef

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kuzujuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuzujuk/gifts).



> this is a super, super belated birthday present for the inimitable kuzu and also doubles as seasonally appropriate high holy days content...  
> l’shana tova u’metukah, and may your name be written in the book of life for the new year!
> 
> (the title is the name of one of the best and most ominous piyyutim in the entire high holy days liturgy, at least imo... chills, every time)  
> (although, edit from the other side of the high holy days, i really should have named this after the vidui or the ashamnu instead of the unetaneh tokef. i was thinking about this a possibly unreasonable amount in the delirium of the yom kippur fast. im still proud of this fic tho lmao)

It was more sheer chance than any sort of planning that lead to Enma encountering Chrome a week or so after the Representative Battles of the Rainbow, tapping her fingers one of the outdoor tables of Namimori’s shopping district’s coffee shops.

She noticed him just as he noticed her, jerking her hand to the miniature fork that lay beside her flan. She relaxed a little the instant later, studying him, but kept her hand by the fork as he approached on impulse, like she was ready to stab him just in case. Well, Enma was pretty sure there was no _like_ about it.

Everything about her looked fragile, like spun glass or delicate ceramic, but her name was a kind of metal known for its unyielding strength and Enma knew firsthand her own strength, her determination and courage and tenuous trust. If he stepped one foot wrong, he was _definitely_ getting stabbed. And Loser Enma was known for being clumsy.

He had known what he wanted to say the moment he spotted her. He just had to be careful in the saying of it, because if he died, Tsuna and everyone would be sad and Adel would bring him back to life just to yell at him for being stupid.

“Um, Chrome-san,” he started, trying to appear unthreatening, which given that he apparently radiated patheticness shouldn't have been as hard to do deliberately as it seemed to be. “I… I wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize?” She tilted her head at him just slightly. “What for?”

Was that a test, or was she genuinely confused? Enma had no way of knowing. Lies within lies, truth hidden behind veils of illusion. He had made the acquaintance of a number of Mists by now, and was close enough friends with Julie to know that the Desert worked on basically the same principles. And despite all the flashy shows of power, Chrome was possibly the most competent of all of them, because half her masks weren’t masks at all, and where better to hide a lie than right beside a truth?

He decided to just answer. “For,” he waved a hand, “for well, the whole kidnapping thing. And everything that happened after it. Just because we, I, were being manipulated, that doesn’t make it excusable. And then everything got resolved, and you saved my life, and we never even apologized for what we put you through.”

Chrome regarded him steadily, her face flat as a floodplain, until he looked away and started fiddling with his shirt. “Boss did not want you to die,” she explained eventually. Enma wasn’t the best at reading people, and Chrome embodied the elusive Mist, but he was still pretty sure that that wasn’t the whole truth.

He was also pretty sure he wouldn’t _get_ the whole truth unless he talked more, and even then there wasn’t much chance.

“There's this idea,” explained Enma, “in my family's tradition. It's called _teshuvah_ , which means return, or repentance, and it's a process that goes: you apologize, you make amends, you ask forgiveness, and you never do it again.” He glanced over towards the street at one of the town’s trees, its leaves gilded with autumn. “The season reminded me of it, though I shouldn’t have ever forgotten. Fall is the time for looking over the past year, and for making teshuvah for all the wrongs you’ve committed before the new year.”

Chrome just stared at him, her eyepatch making an already impassive face even harder to read.

Enma fidgeted from where he stood awkwardly, remembering what Tsuna had told him once about how it was basically impossible to keep up a conversation with Chrome. Enma hadn’t quite believed him at the time — nervous babbling pretty much always did the trick in some way or another — but he understood now. She seemed to suck all the conversational energy right out of the air like it was Mist flames and not Earth flames that let a person make black holes. Enma wasn’t sure whether to be uncomfortable or impressed.

“So, um,” he continued finally, trying to meet Chrome’s unwavering gaze. It took him a few more seconds to get his voice working again: big apologies, even ones he fully meant and was more than prepared to say, were hard to vocalize. “I’m sorry, for everything I put you through. If there is anything I can do to make amends, please tell me what it is so I can do it. And, uh, you really don’t have to forgive me, but if you want to, uh…”

“The one I would like to stab is Daemon Spade, not you,” interrupted Chrome steadily, perfectly composed and not at all with the face of someone who wanted to commit murder.

Enma shifted his weight on his feet. “Um, but…”

“You are forgiven, and I consider Shimon’s alliance and aid to Boss in times of need more than adequate amends,” she pronounced, with all the gravitas of a binding oath and a sort of raw honesty that terrified him. That she had masks and masks, lies and illusions, and yet could shed them just as easily as she piled them on, bare herself to be seen should she so choose, made her one of the most dangerous people Enma knew. Dangerous, and willing to break and kill for the ones she had found a home with.

Enma leaned back a little into the Flame that burned deep inside his stomach, fed in veins of copper from his hands to his heart, let the fertile gravity of what he could be draw him in. He had to be Shimon Decimo for this, not Loser Enma, who stood fidgeting, unconfident. “I cannot adequately express my gratitude for the forgiveness you have granted me,” he said, letting the formal words he hardly ever dug up roll off his tongue, energized by his Will. “As I have already pledged, and as my ancestor pledged too, Shimon will stand forever with Vongola in friendship undying, as long as our Families live.”

Chrome smiled at him, just the tiniest movement of the corner of her mouth, and Enma let out a deep, obvious sigh of relief.

“Sit down,” she said, gesturing at her little table’s other chair.

Enma shook himself free of the grounding certainty of his Flame and collapsed into it. He was bone-tired, suddenly, the kind of exhaustion that comes after surviving a life-or-death situation, and he wanted to sleep for a week.

Chrome pushed her still-whole flan and its little fork at him and winked.

Bemused, he looked from her to it, and back again. “Um, are you giving this to me?”

She nodded. He looked back and forth again.

“Uh, thanks,” he said, “again.” And he then gave up trying to carry the conversation in favor of sugar.

Somehow, the silence that followed after was soft, and friendly, and Enma, the weight of guilt finally off his shoulders, managed to breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is @grainjew and im always happy to talk about reborn! _and_ to explain things about judaism, so come talk to me !!
> 
> idk if you can get flan at random cafes in japan but it was my FAVORITE thing to get after school in middle school when my parents had given me a little cash. fuckin delicious honestly, i highly recommend it


End file.
